Tea at Trianon: Loss of Principles

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Loss of Principles

Pat Buchanan on the GOP.

On issue after issue, the Republican Party, if it stood true to its beliefs and purged the twin heresies of neoconservatism in foreign policy and Wall Street Journal ideology in trade and immigration policy, would still stand well with Middle America.
Most Americans are traditionalist on right to life, homosexual marriage, a polluted culture and Hollywood values. Most Americans believe in a defense second to none, while staying out of wars that are not our quarrels.

Jeff said...: "Most Americans" supported the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Grenada and Panama operations, the War in Afghanistan, and--for a long, long time--the War in Iraq.

I was a conservative at the time of the Vietnam War. The idea that "most conservatives" or even conservatives at all were against "foreign adventures" would have been received with derision by conservatives and liberals alike.

There is an attempt to redefine conservatism in war parallel to that of the radical traditionalists in Catholicism, who carp not only about the Spirit of Vatican Two, but that of Vatican One and even Trent and cast longing eyes in the direction of the Eastern Orthodox.

I am in favor of the War in Iraq. I am not a "neoconservative" or a "paleoconservative". I am just a conservative: in favor of traditional social and cultural values; in favor of a free economy; in favor of an assertive pro-democratic Americanist foreign policy. I'm just the same as I was in the days of Reagan and I won't yield to the reigning redefinitions of the day.; January 8, 2008 at 7:38:00 PM EST
elena maria vidal said...: I, sadly, did not appreciate Reagan when he was president, being young and foolish. I do appreciate him now. But my favorite president is still Nixon, especially after reading "Witness."; January 9, 2008 at 8:09:00 PM EST